The Children of Skyrim
by 2-RCR-approved
Summary: "Do not ask us where we were when the Dragon Broke, for, of all the world, only we truly know, and we might just show you how to break it again." A novelization of Skyrim. Act One: the Dragon Break. In which Alessia is confused and ends up with more questions than answers as strange things keep happening to her.
1. The Dragon Break Reexamined

**The Dragon Break Reexamined, by Fal Droon**

The late 3rd era was a period of remarkable religious ferment and creativity. The upheavals of the reign of Uriel VII were only the outward signs of the historical forces that would eventually lead to the fall of the Septim Dynasty. The so called "Dragon Break" was first proposed at this time, by a wide variety of cults and fringe sects across the Empire, connected only by a common obsession with the events surrounding Tiber Septim's rise to power - the "founding myth," if you will, of the Septim Dynasty.

The basis of the Dragon Break doctrine is now known to be a rather prosaic error in the timeline printed in the otherwise authoritative "Encyclopedia Tamrielica," first published in 3E 12, during the early years of Tiber Septim's reign. At that time, the archives of Alinor were still inaccessible to human scholars, and the extant records from the Alessian period were extremely fragmentary. The Alessians had systematically burned all the libraries they could find, and their own records were largely destroyed during the War of Righteousness.

The author of the Encyclopedia Tamrielica was apparently unfamiliar with the Alessian "year," which their priesthood used to record all dates. We now know this refers to the length of the long vision-trances undertaken by the High Priestess, which might last anywhere from a few weeks to several months. Based on analysis of the surviving trance scrolls, as well as murals and friezes from Alessian temples, I estimate that the Alessian Order actually lasted only about 150 years, rather than the famous "one thousand and eight years" given by the Encyclopedia Tamrielica. The "mystery" of the millennial-plus rule of the Alessians was accepted but unexplained until the spread of the Lorkhan cults in the late 3rd era, when the doctrine of the Dragon Break took hold. Because this dating (and explanation) was so widely held at the time, and then repeated by historians down through today, it has come to have the force of tradition. Recall, however, that the 3rd era historians were already separated from the Alessians by a gulf of more than 2,000 years. And history was still in its infancy, relying on the few archives from those early days.

Today, modern archaeology and paleonumerology have confirmed what my own research in Alessian dating first suggested: that the Dragon Break was invented in the late 3rd era, based on a scholarly error, fueled by obsession with eschatology and Numidiumism, and perpetuated by scholarly inertia.

"Do not ask us where we were when the Dragon Broke, for, of all the world, only we truly know, and we might just show you how to break it again."

"Every culture on Tamriel remembers the Dragon Break in some fashion; to most it is a spiritual anguish that they cannot account for."

"As for myself, I was here and there and here again, like the rest of the mortals during the Dragon Break. How do you think I learned my mystery? The Marukhati Selectives showed us all the glories of the Dawn so that we might learn, simply: as above, so below."

* * *

A Dunmeri woman paused in her prayer and stood still, listening, her heartbeat quick and light in her ears. Beyond the sighing wind and the distant howling of wolves, she heard nothing. There was no difference in the bewildering brilliance of the sky above, that she could notice, in any case; there had to be millions of stars, there was no way she could ever see them all.

The priestess of Azura lowered her hands slowly and turned to look out over the face of Skyrim, a wild land full of mysteries Azura would never reveal to her. The constellations had not changed. The mountains ranged silent around her, indifferent to the minor changes that wind and weather constantly bore upon them. The statue of Azura rose before her, magnificent as ever, as distant and cold as the stars above. The land itself glittered with snow and ice and the distant grey-gold of the Whiterun plains. Nothing had changed.

And yet, something had changed. Something fundamental. Her very soul cried out with it: something is not right. Wordless, pleading, she lifted her hands to the statue of Azura. Speak to me!

"One will come," the Goddess of Dusk and Dawn whispered to her. "The one Akatosh blessed."

"The one..." Not much surprised her anymore, but this did. The Aedra very rarely interfered in the mortal realm. "There is one walking Mundus that Akatosh himself blessed?"

"Twice over," Azura murmured. "As above, so below."

* * *

 _Prologue: The Dragon Break, Reexamined_

 _Chapter One: Haemar's Shame_

 _Chapter Two: Before the Storm_

 _Chapter Three:_


	2. Haemar's Shame

_before_

 _Near Haemar's Shame, Falkreath Hold, Skyrim_

"We must be nearly there by now."

"Yeah, yeah, we're nearly there! Step it up, would you? My master ain't very patient."

 _Divines._ With an effort, Alessia stood straighter and looked up. An aurora rippled brilliantly against a backdrop of cold, distant stars; the snowclouds, at least, had moved on. Around her rose peaks wreathed in snow and raggedy clouds; she and the dog (that _damned_ dog) had been climbing a slope for the better part of a day. Before that, he'd led her through the ruins of Fort Helgen, long abandoned by the Imperials. She had been there in the days following its destruction at the hands of vengeful Stormcloaks; she could still picture quite vividly the people of Helgen lying in neat rows, mostly covered by blankets, the Falkreath guards standing watch, the bodies of Stormcloaks left where they had fallen for the crows and skeevers.

"I'm doing a favor for you, dog. I could just go home, you know, I've got children waiting for me." She touched the bandages on her side and closed her eyes, concentrating, until the bittersweet relief of Restoration melted through her and finished up the hack job she'd done earlier. Her head went foggy and she had to lean back against the nice, solid tree trunk until she recovered from the use of Magicka. Restoration had never been her strong suit. _I'm no High Elf_. "Give me a minute. I'm a spellsword, a Destruction spellsword, I'm not used to relying on healing magic."

Barbas sat, tongue lolling out, suddenly as patient as he had been impatient a moment before. "Ah, you're fine. Don't worry about it, my master don't even know we're on the way."

Alessia closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, ignoring the bite of cold air in her mouth and throat. It wasn't so bad when she used Destruction. She could throw spears of ice or a bolt of lightning or a ball of fire without feeling like she'd just had a few shots with that bastard Sam. Something in her blood, perhaps. Her father had been an Imperial soldier, not a battlemage, but her mother had been a blacksmith. She could have been an Adept. She'd certainly never let a young Alessia near her forge when it was lit.

Fresh air, stillness, a nice bit of elves' ear—a recipe for recovering Magicka. Before that whole business with the Forsworn and the Brotherhood, she had relied on the alchemical skills of her Breton friends in Markarth. She hadn't ever been very good with alchemy herself; she was too impatient to turn a sludge of random ingredients into a proper potion, though she knew the recipes well and gathered ingredients where she could. She fumbled with chilled fingers for her pouch of alchemical ingredients. She hadn't come across any elves' ears, but she had found a patch of red mountain flowers, and those were almost as good. They tasted terrible, of course; most alchemical ingredients did, except for the rare few also used in cooking. The potions themselves weren't much better, even the ones made with honey. She forced herself to chew quickly, not bothering to hide her distaste. Within moments, she felt revitalized, and her cotton-mouth vanished. She spat the tasteless remains onto the ground and tied the pouch back to her belt.

"Let's get going," she said, and started up the path again as Barbas bounded ahead of her, tail wagging.

"Ya know, you never said you got children," the dog said, slowing to look back at her. "I didn't take you for the settling down kind. You're an adventurer, right? Otherwise you'da said _fuck off._ Or something like that, anyhow."

"That's rich coming from a talking dog," she half-laughed, mincing across an icy portion of the trail. "I know my way around a sword and a bow, but I'm no adventurer. I'm a merchant, in fact, or I was before I took in all my kids."

"You're damn good with Destruction for a merchant," he said with the sort of sly look all dogs got before trying to steal food from their master's table. "Where did you say you're from, anyhow? I don't quite remember."

"I never said— _look out!_ " Alessia flung her hand out and let fly a bolt of lightning, narrowly missing the white-grey dragon that had somehow snuck up while they hadn't been paying attention. Its head went back like a snake about to strike and the mouth gaped open, revealing wickedly sharp teeth and a wisp of fire on the back of its tongue. Barbas barked sharply and lunged forward, heedless of the slopes; she had to lunge forward himself to grab him by the scruff before he leapt off the side of the mountain pass. That saved her from death: the wisp of fire became a thundering blaze as the dragon roared.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you all!" the dog barked, struggling to get out of Alessia's hold. She waited until the dragon's flaming breath stopped before rolling over and releasing him, using both hands to shoot a concentrated blast of lightning directly into the dragon's still-open mouth as it took another deep breath. It jerked back and flailed its wings for a moment to get away from the painful jolt, and she followed it accurately with more bolts of lightning until her Magicka ran out. Then she drew her sword and prepared for the real battle.

Dragons had been reigning terror over Skyrim for months now. Part of the reason she'd opened the orphanage in Falkreath was because the dragons hadn't gone there so often as the rest of the province, Divines only knew why. Half the kids' parents had died in a dragon attack. Alessia had, so far, been one of the fortunate few to never experience a dragon attack. _Looks like my luck's run out._ Perhaps Nocturnal had been helping her as a reward for chasing down Mercer Frey with Karliah and Jenassa, and only now had lifted her blessing.

Whatever the case, she had to focus. The dragon was coming back around for another go, eyes bright with fury. Did dragons _feel_ fury? There she went again, thinking about things when she should be fighting. She stuffed a handful of red flower petals in her mouth and crouched with sword in one hand, dagger in another, chewing quickly, preparing to leap. In the early days of the dragons' reappearance, nobody had known how to fight them. But a handful of guards had killed one near Whiterun and with the freely offered help of the brave couriers, publications were spread across Skyrim detailing what Whiterun's court wizard had been able to learn from the dragon's corpse before it came back to life. They had weak spots. They had vulnerabilities. And Alessia knew all of them.

The dragon swooped in, jaws gaping, snapping with teeth and claws. Alessia rolled out of the way and leapt just as the dragon turned to circle around again. She landed precarious on its back, stabbed the dagger in deep between two large scales and used it to hold on grimly as the dragon wrenched around to try and shake her off. It screamed defiance and flew straight up and back down again, landing with the sound of thunder in the middle of the mountain pass.

Barbas charged from below and started worrying one leg; Alessia couldn't worry about him, though, as the dragon's head twisted around and snapped at her, only barely missing. She forced its head away with her sword, which had been gifted to her by one of the Companions a few years before. It was the strongest sword she had ever wielded, and she had named it Bitterblue. Skyforge Steel—the best in Skyrim—and the dragon's teeth closed around it and as she used a bit of alteration magic to make herself stronger and thrust the sword through its mouth and out the other end of its jaw, the dragon bit down and the sword snapped. Half the blade fell away when Alessia let go of the hilt, the other half still stuck halfway through the dragon's jaw.

At this point Barbas apparently grew too much of a nuisance for the dragon to ignore, especially now that it had taken Alessia's main weapon away from her. It reared up and came down hard where the dog had been a moment ago. She couldn't see him anymore, but she heard him yelp in pain and focused on prying the dagger out of where she had lodged it. Her Magicka was nearly back up to its full level. If she timed it just right—

"Mey joorre! Faas bahi, bah do Nahstrunir!" The dragon spoke in words of thunder, and Alessia's whole body shook with the force of it, though she still sat astride his back, holding on to anything she could while working her dagger loose. Its voice was mighty and terrible and she realized immediately that dragons were not the fell beasts of legend: they were worse, for they had to be as intelligent as any race of man or mer. But clearly they could not be reasoned with, for surely they would have been.

It was too late to contemplate it. She was already fighting for her life. She didn't know if Barbas still lived, but if he did, she was fighting for his life, too. In the short time they'd known each other, he had already endeared himself to her.

"Talos, mighty warrior, guide my blade; Julianos, empower my spells," she whispered, and drew back her arm to plunge the dagger down into the dragon's spine. As she did so, she released a torrent of deadly electricity straight down the blade into the dragon's body. The dragon became rigid as the electricity coursed through its system. A high, keening scream burst from Alessia's lips as she forced more and more Magicka into the spell, making it last far longer than it should have. Her vision went white, and then black, and then she felt the rushing of air as she fell from the dragon's back and she saw nothing at all.

 _and the dragon broke_

 _Near Fort Helgen, Falkreath Hold, Skyrim_

The bump and jostle of an unfamiliar cart woke her. Alessia opened her eyes and immediately closed them again—the bright morning sun made them water. The splitting headache didn't help things. Had she gotten drunk with that Sam fellow again? Oh, Divines, she hoped she didn't have to go chasing after goats again. Luckily the priestess of Dibella hadn't recognized her. The cart jolted again and she grimaced.

"Hey, you, finally awake!"

She opened her eyes again, blinking away the tears, to look at the man across the cart from her, a Nord wearing battered Stormcloak armor. His eyes were tired, his face filthy, his hair tangled; but he looked kind, for all that. "You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there."

Alessia glanced down at herself: she wore ragged clothes instead of her normal well-trimmed furs, and the leather armor she normally had underneath her furs had vanished. Even her mother's amulet of Talos had disappeared. They had tied her hands together, same as the Nord's and the dark-haired man next to him. The well-dressed Nord sitting beside her, who she thought she should recognize, had been gagged. _Why is he wearing Stormcloak armor? Didn't the Imperial Army clear them out ages ago? One last camp, I suppose, they're as resilient as the Forsworn._

"Damn you Stormcloaks." The dark-haired man spat on the bottom of the cart. He had a lean, hungry look, and something about him put her on edge. "Skyrim was fine until you came along. Empire was nice and lazy. If they hadn't been looking for you, I could've stolen that horse and be halfway to Hammerfell. You there. You and me - we shouldn't be here. It's these Stormcloaks the Empire wants."

 _Yeah. Of course it is. It's been months since the execution, they're just an embarrassment to the Empire now._

"We're all brothers and sisters in binds now, thief," said the first man, glaring at him.

"Shut up back there!"

Until he spoke, Alessia hadn't realized that the man driving the cart was an Imperial soldier. Contempt dripped from his words, and she was sure that if she tried to jump off the back of the cart—especially with her hands tied—he would catch her easily, and wouldn't be gentle about bringing her back. It wouldn't matter that her father had fought in the Great War; it wouldn't even matter that these soldiers were meant to be fighting the dragons alongside those who had survived Whiterun and Riften. In all probability, only the dregs of the Imperial Army had been sent to capture the last Stormcloaks, and he sounded like the worst of the lot.

"And what's wrong with him, huh?" the thief went on, ignoring their driver, eyeing the well-dressed Nord. He looked back impassively.

"Watch your tongue. You're speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King." The blond Nord bowed his head towards the gagged— _Ulfric Stormcloak?!_

Her mind went blank, and the words she'd been about to speak died on her tongue. The leader of the Uprising? But hadn't he been executed _months_ ago in the Imperial City? More than a year, even. The civil war had ended the day he was captured back in 201, mere days after he'd killed the late King Torygg; the moot to succeed him had lasted for weeks, and she'd made a lot of coin supplying them and their retinues when they gathered in Whiterun. This had been, of course, before the mess of Sun's Dawn in 202.

"Ulfric? The Jarl of Windhelm? You're the leader of the rebellion. But if they've captured you...oh gods, where are they taking us?" The thief started to hyperventilate. He looked around wildly, gauging his chances of escape.

"I don't know where we're going, but Sovngarde awaits." The Stormcloak's voice was heavy as he looked down at his bound hands.

"No, this can't be happening. This isn't happening." The thief's voice neared true panic. " _Shor._ "

"Hey, what village are you from horse thief?" The Stormcloak sounded a little wistful; strange for a soldier to feel reminiscent, but perhaps he realized that his days were at an end. Did he regret it, any of it? Taking part in a war? Ripping Skyrim apart?

"Why do you care?" His voice had turned bitter.

"A Nord's last thoughts should be of home."

"Rorikstead. I'm...I'm from Rorikstead."

 _Markarth_ , Alessia thought, though that ancient city hadn't been her home for many years now. She wondered what had happened to her mother's house. Had anyone moved in? She'd avoided going back to that city, but perhaps she should, just to see what had happened to everyone she had known as a child. Perhaps there were a few Reachmen who had survived the Bear's attack.

The Bear of Markarth, who destroyed her childhood, was sitting right next to her, bound and gagged. She could have laughed at the irony of it all if she wasn't so bewildered. How was he alive? Had he escaped execution back in 201?

The procession of carts turned towards an Imperial fort. A man in an Imperial Captain's uniform stood by the gate, watching them arrive. The fort looked familiar—yes, she remembered now, she'd been here before. Helgen. Very near the border. For some reason, being here brought back the taste of ash on her tongue and smoke in her lungs.

"General Tullius, sir! The headsman is waiting!"

"Good. Let's get this over with." The general's voice came from ahead of them; she couldn't see where. Alessia felt a moment's respect for the man who'd ended a provincial civil war in less than a year before remembering that for some reason she had been taken captive, too, and for no reason that she could imagine. She must have taken quite a blow to the head if she couldn't remember anything more than—than—what _did_ she remember? The last thing, before waking up in the cart...something about a dog. She could distinctly remember the smell of wet dog.

"Shor, Mara, Dibella, Kynareth, Akatosh. Divines, please help me," the thief beseeched the sky, lifting his bound hands.

 _Akatosh_. A chord rang out within her, and everything faded away. The words of her fellow prisoners became tinny and distant. A deep, powerful voice echoed inside of her mind, speaking words in a tongue she did not know, but understood in the depths of her soul. " _Dahmaan, moni. Dahmaan vahzen. Dahmaan wo hi los. Gein, hi los ni._ "

 _Was that..? How did I understand it?_

"Look at him, General Tullius the Military Governor. And it looks like the Thalmor are with him. Damn elves. I bet they had something to do with this..."

"..inside the house. Now."

"Whoa!" The Imperial cart driver slowed the cart, bringing her out of the strange memory, though the words echoed in the back of her mind. _Remember, daughter. Remember who you are._

 _You are not alone._

What had he meant? Was it truly Akatosh who had spoken to her? Who else could it have been, though? There was no other reason for a Divine's name to trigger such a memory. Perhaps a Priest of Akatosh? There weren't many of those, at least not that she had met. She would _remember_ meeting a Priest of Akatosh. Then again, she would remember meeting Akatosh himself.

 _Akatosh? Can you hear me? Will you speak to me?_

The thundering words echoed in her mind again. _Alone, you are not_. Was he speaking to her—had he ever spoken to her? Or was she making up words and imagining a voice to go with them? She barely remembered her own father's voice; it sounded vaguely similar, though with a stronger Redguard accent.

"Get these prisoners out of the carts. Move it!" A woman with a Captain's helmet snapped. She stood next to another soldier, a Nord who looked vaguely familiar. He had a scroll in one hand. Where had she seen him before? One of the villages she had travelled through as a merchant, surely. Would he recognize her now, with her hair far shorter than it had been, out of her fine clothes, probably covered in dirt?

That soldier had mentioned a headsman. Were they going to execute Ulfric here, so he didn't have a chance to escape again? Surely they wouldn't execute all of them here; surely they'd get a fair trial in the Imperial City. The Stormcloaks may have been tried in absentia, since war prisoners didn't have the same rights as the average citizen, but she wasn't a Stormcloak. She was a merchant; she knew the stewards in every major city; she ran an orphanage in Falkreath, for Kynareth's sake.

She wasn't a Stormcloak. She wouldn't be executed. She couldn't be. She was an Imperial citizen; her father had been an Imperial soldier, a loss of the Great War; she couldn't be executed for blundering into an ambush. What had she been doing so near the border? _Wet dog._ Had the Companions been involved? It wasn't widely known that some of them were werewolves, but thanks to a rather excellent night spent with one of the inner circle, she was in the know. Yet the Companions had been reduced to so few after those silver-wielding bandits attacked. Only Aela and Kodlak remained of the original Circle.

"Why are we stopping?" the horse thief asked plaintively.

"Why do you think? End of the line." The Nord looked down at his hands for a moment before standing. "Let's go. Shouldn't keep the gods waiting for us."

They all stood and filed out of the cart, Alessia bringing up the rear. It was harder to drop down with her hands bound, but she managed. Her dark red hair fell in front of her eyes and she shook it back, impatient. She wanted to see all she could of this place, of these people.

"No! Wait! We're not rebels!" Lokir shook visibly as they lined up, clearly terrified. _Shouldn't have chosen a life of crime then, horse thief_ , she thought critically, then sighed. It was a bit hypocritical of her to think that, considering what she'd done in the company of Karliah and Jenassa, not to mention the Brotherhood.

Perhaps they had finally discovered her part in it all. She had left that life behind years ago, but then again the Stormcloak Uprising had been put down years ago and only now was Ulfric Stormcloak being executed.

"Face your death with some courage, thief." The blond Nord glanced at him with contempt and then turned to face straight ahead. There was something noble in the way he faced his fate; something true, something proud, something inherently Nord.

Lokir looked around, gesturing with bound hands as he spoke wildly first to her and then the Imperial soldiers. "You've got to tell them! We weren't with you! This is a mistake!"

"Step towards the block when we call your name. One at a time." The Captain didn't look at their faces as they lined up. She gestured to the man with the list and he unrolled it, clearing his throat.

"Empire loves their damn lists," the blond Nord said quietly, getting in one last jab.

"Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm," the soldier read out.

"It has been an honor, Jarl Ulfric."

"Ralof of Riverwood. Lokir of Rorikstead." The blond Nord moved forward when his name was called, but Lokir hesitated.

"No, I'm not a rebel. You can't do this!" He shook his head and backed up a step, then started running, hands still bound.

"Halt!" The Captain shouted.

"You're not going to kill me!"

The Captain raised a hand. "Archers!" When her hand dropped, two Imperial soldiers both loosed arrows, hitting the horse thief solidly in the back. He lay gasping on the ground as blood spread around him. Alessia's eyes widened and she felt sick. These were the Imperial soldiers she had respected all her life? These were the protectors of the Empire?

The Captain turned back to the lined-up prisoners. "Anyone else feel like running?"

"Wait. You there. Step forward." The Nord with the list was talking to Alessia now, apparently realizing that she wasn't supposed to be there. "Who are you?"

"Alessia Venion." She held her head high. "I am from Cyrodiil. My father fought and died in the Great War."

"Famous name, eh? You're a long way from the Imperial City. What're you doing in Skyrim?" Not expecting to get an answer, the dark-haired Nord glanced at his Captain. "Captain, what should we do? She's not on the list."

"Forget the list," the Captain snapped. "She goes to the block."

"By your orders, Captain." He shook his head and looked at Alessia. "I'm sorry. We'll make sure your remains are returned to Cyrodiil. Follow the Captain, prisoner."

All of the other prisoners had been called, apparently. Alessia was the last. The Captain turned and walked towards the block, where the headsman, a priestess of the Divines, and General Tullius already stood. Alessia knew him on sight; she had been there in Solitude at High Queen Elisif's coronation, and he had stood by her, stern and proud. But that had been months ago—hadn't it? Why was the general back in Skyrim? He'd left a Legate in charge of the Legion, aside from an Auxiliary who had been in charge of rooting out all the pockets of Stormcloak resistance. He'd gone off to the Imperial City to collect the accolades of putting down a rebellion.

"Ulfric Stormcloak, some here in Helgen call you a hero. But a hero doesn't use a power like the Voice to murder his king and usurp his throne." Tullius folded his arms as he spoke to Ulfric, who grunted in protest. "You started this war, plunged Skyrim into chaos. And now the Empire is going to put you down and restore the peace."

From the mountains came a distant, ringing cry, the roar of some fell beast; they all looked up and around, searching for the source. Alessia recognized it instantly and went white. The last time she had fought a dragon, it hadn't exactly gone well. Except, wait, when had she ever fought a dragon? She co-owned a trading venture in the Reach, for Kynareth's sake; she was no warrior. She had trained as a spellsword, but she hadn't had much cause to take up arms and armor. Even as a young merchant, before she had settled down to let her Reachman friends run the business for her, she had never really needed to be proficient.

No. She had. She distinctly recalled the sweat on her brow and the weariness of her limbs as she lifted her blade—a Skyforge blade—to block Aela's strike. The Companions? She had fought with the Companions. She had broken bread with all of them, shared a bed with two, and mourned their shield-siblings when they fell.

 _What is wrong with me? I've never met any Companions._

 _No. I did. I had an incredible night with...what was his name again? Something 'kas._

"What was that?" an Imperial cried in shock, unwittingly echoing Alessia's inner turmoil.

"It's nothing," said General Tullius, uncrossing his arms. "Carry on."

"Yes, General Tullius," the Captain said, saluting him. She turned to the Priestess. "Give them their last rites."

"Good to know we're being given every right," Alessia muttered, prompting a chuckle from Ralof, standing near her. The Nord Legionnaire also appeared to hear; he winced a little and didn't meet her eyes when she looked at him.

So. There was a dragon in the mountains nearby, probably about to attack. She may or may not have fought one before. She may or may not have been friends with the Companions. She had definitely hit her head at some point, and clearly there were some issues she had to work out. But there was a more immediate problem: the Imperials were about to execute her, simply for being nearby when they captured Ulfric and a band of Stormcloak soldiers.

The Priestess lifted her hands, beseeching the Divines to look upon them all with favor. "As we commend your souls to Aetherius, blessings of the Eight Divines upon you, for you are the salt and earth of Nirn, our beloved—"

One of the Stormcloaks from the other carts, apparently not wanting to receive the blessing of a Priestess who did not include Talos, shoved his way through the group of prisoners and approached the block. "For the love of Talos, shut up and let's get this over with."

 _Brave man._ What was she going to do? Nothing. A creeping panic had slowed her wits. Not to mention the blow to the head she must have taken, to remember two different things. Besides, there were dozens of legionnaires, and only one of her. No way would she fight beside a Stormcloak and have that damned Captain justified in executing her as a rebel.

The priestess of Arkay lowered her hands in surprise, looking at the defiant Stormcloak. "As you wish."

Head held high, the Stormcloak turned to face the block, not showing any fear. Alessia could almost admire the nobility of it, except it was stupid. "Come on! I haven't got all day."

The self-important captain moved forward and shoved the Stormcloak down onto his knees as he spoke, then put her foot on his back and forced him down. He turned his face to the headsman as he spoke again, a proud Nord, defiant to the end. "My ancestors are smiling at me, Imperials. Can you say the same?"

Alessia had not witnessed very many executions. The last one had been in Solitude, the Hjaalmarch guard executed for allowing Ulfric Stormcloak freely into and out of the capital. There had been a bloodthirsty crowd gathered that day, and today, apparently, was no different. Unceremoniously, the headsman's axe went up and down and back up again; the head rolled into the basket, left there for just such a purpose, and the captain pushed the body aside with her foot. Several people spoke at once.

"You Imperial bastards!" A woman's voice, thick with grief and outrage; "Justice!" A man's voice, also grieving, also outraged, though for different reasons; "Death to the Stormcloaks!" another villager cried, savagely pleased.

In the outcry, Ralof's voice was quiet and reserved. "As fearless in death as he was in life."

Ignoring them all, the captain turned back to the prisoners and pointed directly at Alessia. "Next, the renegade from Cyrodiil!"

The dragon roared again, closer this time, but Alessia did not hear it. The panic had fully seized her now. This was it; they were really going to kill her. They weren't even going to give her a trial. The one who'd asked her name had at least seemed sympathetic about it, but he wasn't going against orders. They were going to kill her. She was about to die.

"There it is again. Did you hear that?" The dark-haired Nord dropped the list he still held, hand going to his sword.

The Captain, impatient, put her hand on her own sword. "I said, next prisoner!"

"To the block, prisoner. Nice and easy."

Alessia had thought she might say something regal or important or even funny, but she could not think of anything to say. Her tongue felt thick and clumsy in her mouth. Besides Destruction, she knew a variety of Restoration spells, some Alteration, even a little Illusion; none of them came to mind. Her last words would be a sarcastic remark. _What a way to go down in history._

She felt a dwemer automaton as she walked forward, numb, wide-eyed but seeing nothing, really. All the glory of Aetherius awaited, if the priests were to be believed. She'd never had much contact with the gods, unless you counted the made-up conversation she'd just had with Akatosh. _Not alone, my foot. Where are you now, Time-Lord?_ Abruptly, she was standing in front of the bloody block, then kneeling next to a headless body, then forced down by the weight of an Imperial boot on her back. She licked her lips and tasted the blood on the stone. A bird was flying very quickly towards them from the mountains. No, that was too large to be a bird.

The headsman lifted his axe, and the dragon landed.

* * *

 _A/N: Second chapter - I'm posting this now because the first was so short. Next update should be a week from today, but no promises, as I do work long hours. Criticisms welcomed!_

 _I will be following the storyline for a short while, but it will diverge majorly as the DB realizes what she is, what's happened, and what she can do now._

 _I am not even conversationally proficient in Dovahzul, so my apologies for poor grammar etc. This is a fanfiction, and I am far more concerned with developing my writing than developing my understanding of a language that I will never use in any other context._


	3. Before the Storm

**A/N: I intended to post this ages ago, but my file was corrupted and I lost it all. Even the backup wouldn't open! I had to reconstruct my plot and what I had written of this chapter from scratch. I now have the story plotted out thoroughly for the next twenty chapters; all I have to do is actually _write_ those chapters...**

 _Fort Helgen, Falkreath Hold, Skyrim_

"What in Oblivion is that?" General Tullius cried out, stumbling backward and drawing his sword. The Captain yelled something and another soldier answered, but the dragon landing on the tower behind the Imperials deafened everything. The dragon roared, and all Oblivion broke loose.

"Don't just stand there, kill that thing!" Tullius shouted. "Guards, get the townsfolk to safety!"

The dragon's landing impact had knocked both Alessia and her would-be executioner down. He appeared to be at the very least unconscious, though she wouldn't have cared if he had been killed. The sky itself was on fire. The sky was on fire, and the fire was falling like rain, exploding all around her. She had been saved from execution—only to burn to death. _Gods, I didn't ask for this!_

She knew the irony of that thought. She'd wanted desperately for something to stop them cutting her head off. Well, something had happened.

"Hey, you! Get up! Come on, the gods won't give us another chance! This way!" Ralof appeared out of the smoke like one of the ancient heroes of old, a stolen Imperial sword in one hand. His Stormcloak armor was much hardier than her own rags; she could feel her skin blistering from the heat, though the flames had yet to touch her directly. Still dizzy with relief and shock, she allowed Ralof to grab her bound hands and pull her away from the dragon.

They ran towards the keep, through a crowd of Imperial soldiers who couldn't hide their terror and Stormcloak prisoners who were making the best of their chances and running. Half of the Stormcloaks came with them into the Keep, where they thronged around Ulfric Stormcloak, who had removed his gag and the bindings on his hand.

As Alessia used magicka to burn off the bindings on her own hands, Ralof spoke. "Jarl Ulfric! What is that thing? Could the legends be true?"

"Legends don't burn down villages." The Bear of Markarth had a deep voice, with strength behind his words. He shook his head. "We need to move, now!"

"Up through the tower. Let's go!" Ralof urged her onwards, up a spiraling staircase that two other Stormcloaks had already started ascending. "This way, friend! Move!"

"Call me Alessia," she said, keeping pace with him and the other two Stormcloaks easily. "It's easier than 'Hey, you!'"

"Ha! True, my friend. Alessia it is, then." The Nord grinned, a flash of white teeth against his soot-stained face. "Nice to meet you! I'm Ralof."

"We just need to move some of these rocks to clear the way!" called one of the Stormcloaks ahead of them. He sheathed his axe and knelt—but whatever he was going to do, he didn't manage it, for the dragon chose that moment to smash through the tower wall, killing the two Stormcloaks instantly. Alessia and Ralof were far enough back that they ducked and the dragon's blast of fire didn't hurt them, though Alessia smelled her hair singeing. A long moment later and the dragon's head retreated; in a thunder of wind it flew away.

The damage to the tower was severe. There was no way they were going to get any higher. Wide-eyed, she surveyed the destruction of Helgen through the hole in the wall. It was the stuff of nightmares.

"See the inn on the other side? Jump through the roof and keep going! Go! We'll follow you when we can!" Ralof pushed her through the gap. She jumped, seeing no other choice, and landed with a roll that would have made her former tutor proud. She summoned magicka and kept a lightning spell ready in one hand, leaving the other free to grab a weapon—any weapon, though she was best with a sword. A brief look around showed her none of any kind, so she ran outside, hoping the dragon wasn't nearby.

She couldn't immediately see it, so she felt comfortable running onwards, towards a group of survivors. The sympathetic Nord soldier was urging a boy to safety. "Haming, you need to get over here now! Thataboy, you're doing great!"

The boy ran over to him just as the dragon swooped down. His father was not so lucky, catching the brunt of the dragon's fire. Far enough from the blast radius that she didn't even have to duck, Alessia let loose her spell, barely missing as the dragon turned in midair. As he flew away, she started running towards them again.

"Torolf! Gods...everyone get back!" the legionnaire shouted, shielding the boy with his own body. When the dragon flew away again, he stood and checked over the boy first, before noticing her running over. "Still alive, prisoner? Keep close to me if you want to stay that way. Gunnar, take care of the boy. I have to find General Tullius and join the defense."

"Gods guide you, Hadvar." The other Imperial clapped a hand on Hadvar's shoulder briefly before kneeling to speak to the boy, holding both his arms steady. Hadvar ran onwards through more smoldering wreckage, Alessia close on his heels.

"Hadvar, is it? I think I remember you. Riverwood, right?" She vaguely remembered a younger Hadvar causing some trouble with her trading partners there. He had been gangly and overconfident with terribly spotty skin; he'd certainly outgrown that. He can't be more than 25 now.

"Yes, I grew up there. I don't remember you at all, Imperial! You're from Cyrodiil, right?" Hadvar looked at her, pausing briefly. She nodded and was about to say more when the dragon flew close overhead. He half-ducked, half-fell backwards against the wall, which suddenly seemed very flimsy. "Stay close to the wall!"

They took cover as the dragon perched right above, not seeing them.

" _Yol toor shul!_ " the dragon roared, the words coming out in thundering flame.

 _What?_

"That dragon just spoke!" she said in shock, freezing in place.

"Quickly, follow me!" Hadvar beckoned her onwards. "What do you mean, it spoke? It breathed fire, that's what it did!"

"I heard it say something, I'm sure of it!" She shook her head, moving past it; their immediate concern was survival, not determining whether dragons were as sentient as any man, mer, or beastfolk. "I've been a merchant for years, I've got a trading partner in Riverwood; I remember seeing you...and Ralof, too. Weren't you friends?"

"That was a long time ago," Hadvar said, voice low. He gave her a sidelong glance. "What was your name again?"

"Alessia Venion."

They stopped when they reached the carnage near the main gate. There were Imperial soldiers everywhere, firing arrows in vain; fire had stopped falling from the sky, but half the fort still burned. General Tullius stood near a half-open doorway, urging people through. Screams of fear and rage filled the air.

 _"Tell my family I fought bravely!"_

 _"Die, dragon!"_

 _"How in Oblivion do we kill this thing? Just...die!"_

"Hadvar! Into the keep, soldier, we're leaving!" Tullius ordered, having seen them. He didn't seem to care that Alessia, who he'd been about to execute not five minutes earlier, was with Hadvar. _At least he has his priorities straight. Dragon takes precedence over an incidental prisoner._

"It's you and me, Venion, stay close!"

"Call me Alessia! I'm not old or famous enough to rate a formal surname!" Alessia ran after him. They stopped when Ralof appeared, half of one sleeve gone and his golden hair black with smoke.

"Ralof! You damned traitor, out of my way!" Hadvar snarled, tightening his grip on his sword.

"We're escaping, Hadvar! You're not stopping us this time." Ralof bared his teeth and raised his axe in a threatening manner.

"Fine. I hope that dragon takes you all to Sovngarde!" Hadvar shook his head.

"Alessia, come on!" Ralof said, looking directly at her. "Into the keep!"

"With me, Venion! Let's go! Come on! We need to get inside!" Hadvar also looked at her.

Hadvar may have been one of the Imperials trying to execute her, but he hadn't treated her unkindly. He was only following orders. Ralof, for all his noble words and his kindness to her, was a traitor to the Empire. She wasn't particularly patriotic—had never had the inclination to serve in the Imperial army—but she hated Ulfric Stormcloak for what he had done to Markarth years before. She would never follow him or any that served him. She shook her head slowly and walked towards Hadvar.

"Good luck, Ralof; Divines watch over you."

Following Hadvar, she ran into the keep, closing the door when it became clear that nobody was coming in after them. It was cool and calm inside, the sound of battle and flames muted through the thick stone walls. It seemed eerily quiet after the thundering roar of the dragon.

"Looks like we're the only ones who made it," said Hadvar, sheathing his sword. "Was that really a dragon? The bringers of the End Times?"

Alessia shook her head wordlessly. By now it was clear to her that something was wrong. Fort Helgen had been destroyed years ago, and the dragons had been razing Skyrim for months. General Tullius was definitely in the know; he, the Legate in charge of the Legion in Skyrim—Ricky, or something—and the Jarls were all part of the planning process to get rid of them permanently. Even the Thalmor were part of the planning, though they had to be in it to save their own skins; everyone knew they had no love for any of the other races. Was she dreaming? _Wake up, wake up, wake up—_

"We should keep moving. You've gotten your bindings off, good. Take a look around, there should be plenty of gear to choose from. I'm going to see if I can find something for these burns." Hadvar walked over to a group of barrels and started to pry off some lids with his belt-knife.

Alessia agreed. She was a self-made Spellsword, preferring light armor to heavy, but she would wear anything if it meant protection from the damn dragon's fire breath and the flaming rocks it had somehow called down from the sky. She looked around the room briefly and found a set of Legionnaire armor, a mix of leather and chainmail that would do far better than her rags. Still, any bit of cloth was good to have between skin and mail, especially with so much fire around to super-heat the metal, so she pulled the armor on over the rags. Against one wall stood a weapons rack, mostly empty, with two Imperial swords left; she grabbed the first one and looped the scabbard to her belt.

"You'd better adjust the fit of that armor," he said, looking over at her. "The straps are too loose. Give that sword a few swings, too. Do you need a potion?"

Alessia shook her head, tugging the straps of the breast-piece tighter, then shrugged and nodded. "Yes, but let's keep moving. That thing is still out there."

"Come on, this way." He had found three small healing potions, one of which he handed to her. She drank it in a gulp, making a face at the taste. There were some, made with wheat and blue mountain flowers, which tasted alright; this was not one of them. _Must be blisterwort in there; what a foul aftertaste._

They heard the Stormcloaks in the next room before seeing them.

"We need to get moving! That dragon is tearing up the whole keep!"

"Just give me a minute...I'm out of breath..."

"Hear that? Stormcloaks. Maybe we can reason with them," Hadvar said to her quietly, then raised his hands and stepped forward into their view. "Hold on now, we only want to..."

The Stormcloaks drew their weapons. "Imperial bastard!"

"If you want to die, so be it." Hadvar looked grim as he drew his sword and prepared to defend himself.

"There doesn't have to be blood between us!" cried Alessia, putting power behind her words. "Look around you! There is a strong chance that we are the only survivors. There's a damn dragon out there, and you want to fight us? By the Nines, you Nords are bloodthirsty."

Imperials spoke passionately, and were usually able to move even the hardest hearts and calm the fiercest rage with the right words. This time, however, her voice had no effect. The day had just been too much for the two Stormcloaks; first they lost friends and comrades in a battle, then they were captured and marked for execution, then a dragon attacked. They ignored her and charged, yelling. Alessia brought her sword up in time to block an overhand blow from the man with the double-sided battleaxe, charging an Apprentice-level spell in her off-hand; she didn't want to summon too much magicka at once. The strength behind the strike staggered her, and she fell back, recovering just in time to dodge his next attack. A bolt of lightning slammed the Stormcloak in the chest, electrocuting him thoroughly. He died with a choked scream, falling rigidly, his muscles still twitching even after the breath left his body. His companion, the woman who had complained of being breathless, fared equally well against Hadvar's superior sword technique; she died with a bloody gasp as his blade thrust through her chest, lifting her off the ground briefly before dropping her to the ground.

"That's the end of that. Let's see if I can get that door open." Hadvar sheathed his sword without bothering to wipe it clean, probably thinking they would have to fight through another group further in. Alessia crouched to rifle through the dead Stormcloaks' pockets, unashamed, as he fiddled with the lock on the door. She found a couple of lockpicks, which she secreted away, and a dagger, which she slid into her boot just in case. Their weapons were in good shape, but she didn't want to carry the extra weight, and she preferred the sword she'd taken from the weapons stand.

"Ha! Come on, let's go. Find anything good?"

"Not unless you like mead. Where they got it, I have no idea."

"The priorities of Stormcloaks!" The soldier shook his head. "One last toast before fighting for Skyrim and Sovngarde, I expect."

The doorway opened into a stairwell; they hurried down, Hadvar prying a torch out of a sconce and holding it up to light their path. It went one level down into a hallway. Through an open door they could hear fighting, though nobody was yet visible. Just as they stepped off the stairwell, aiming to go down the hallway and avoid further battle if possible, the roof collapsed in a roar of thunder and flame. Both of them were knocked over by the rumble of the walls.

"Damn, that dragon doesn't give up easy," Hadvar said with a growled expletive, staggering to his feet. Alessia had twisted her ankle in the fall; she Restored it with a brief touch and they continued forward.

"I'm going to run out of Magicka at this rate," she said. "I'm far more skilled in Destruction than Restoration—we need to find some potions, if there are any stored in here."

"You're right—some potions would come in handy," he agreed. They had to go through the door, since rubble now blocked the hallway; the fighting grew louder, as if it were just around the corner, but they didn't immediately see anyone. "There's an old storeroom here. See if you can find any. I'll search over here."

He indicated the back part of the room, where some tables were clustered near a fireplace with a cooking pot set up over it. She nodded and quickly looked through the other end of the room, finding two minor healing potions and a magicka regeneration potion. She drank the last one greedily, sighing as magicka quickened in her veins. _Now I'm prepared for the next battle_.

Hadvar had found a loaf of bread and several hunks of cheese, which he shoved in his satchel, along with two stamina potions. He kept both of them for himself. He readied his sword again, and Alessia did the same. "Done then? This way!"

They went onwards, cautiously, as the sound of battle up ahead had died down. One group had clearly triumphed over the other. The room opened back into the hallway, on the other side of the caved-in section. Fortuitous. Around the corner and down some stairs, they found themselves in a room clearly used for torture. Alessia felt sick at the sight of a man in bloody rags lying on the rack; he could not have been dead for very long, and must have suffered greatly before finally expiring. A hooded man in dark robes and a younger man in a bloodied Imperial uniform stood near the bodies of three Stormcloaks, an Adept-level fire spell readied in the robed man's hands and a battleaxe held defensively by the younger man. They relaxed when he saw Hadvar's uniform.

"A torture room," Hadvar muttered. "Gods, I wish we didn't need these..."

"You fellows happened along just in time," said the robed man, the last of the spell dissipating from his hands. "These boys seemed quite upset at how I'd been entertaining their comrades."

Alessia looked at the dead Stormcloaks involuntarily. One had been cleaved nearly in two — clearly the soldier's work. The other two bore the distinct marks of sorcery; a blackened circle on their chests and black lines on their skin told the story of the torturer's extensive use of lightning. She swallowed and looked away. _I'll never get used to that._

"Don't you even know what's going on? A dragon is attacking Helgen!" Hadvar, having sheathed his sword, used his hands dramatically as he spoke.

"A dragon? Please. Don't make up nonsense..." The torturer hesitated. "Although, come to think of it, I did hear some odd noises coming from over there."

"Come with us," said Hadvar. "We need to get out of here."

"You have no authority over me, boy." He sneered and crossed his arms. His assistant, looking more and more nervous, jumped at the sound of a building collapsing overhead. Dust and stones exploded into the corridor just up the stairs from the torture room, a few smaller ones bouncing down the steps and rolling to a stop near Alessia's feet. She skittered away with a half-gasp. The hallway wasn't collapsed, but there was a great deal more rubble than there had been.

Hadvar, gesturing to the settling dust as proof, admonished the two Imperial men: "Didn't you hear me? I said the keep is under attack!"

"Forget the old man. I'll come with you!" The torturer's assistant moved away from the torturer. "My name's Jonas Invel."

"I'm Alessia Venion," she said, nodding to him. "Imperial City, eh?"

"No, I'm from Bravil," he said. "I just wanted to get out, see the world, you know...all the glory that they promise in the recruitment posters."

"Wait a second, looks like there's something in this cage." Hadvar went over to one of the cages against the wall. Alessia followed. Indeed, there was a man in mage's robes slumped against the back, face drawn with hunger, clutching a book in skeletal fingers.

"Don't bother with that. Lost the key ages ago. Poor fellow screamed for weeks." The torturer smiled slyly.

 _How can he be so heartless?_

"I'll see if I can get it open, I still have a few picks. We'll need everything we can get." Hadvar bent over the lock, working with surprisingly nimble fingers.

"Sure, take all my things. Please." The man's tone was clearly sarcastic, but Alessia decided to take it at face value. She grabbed a pack from a small table, shoving the book next to it inside, and added the potions. It wasn't one of the enchanted packs that could hold far more than it appeared, but it would do, for now. There were another couple of healing potions on a counter, behind some iron bars, as well as a shield, which she slid onto her back. She wasn't handy with a shield, but anything to protect her when facing the dragon's breath could be the difference between life and death.

Hadvar managed to open the cage by the time she returned from searching through the room. He handed her the spell tome the mage had been holding — a Novice-level spell which she already knew. Spell tomes were fairly expensive, though, so she slid it inside the pack. "You're a mage, eh Alessia? Would those robes be more useful than that armor?"

"I don't like wearing dead men's clothes," she muttered, but nodded. "This armor is ill-fitting, Hadvar...you're right, those robes will do me well."

He helped her remove them from the prisoner, and she examined them closely, taking care not to pay much attention to the various bodily fluids that stained it. _Blood, piss, who knows what else._ "This enchantment...it's fairly basic. But it will help my magicka. I won't have to drink magicka potions so often." She shed the armor and pulled on the robes, grateful for the thicker trousers that came with them. The Imperial uniform didn't have much in the way of leg warmth. She rolled up the ends and tucked them into her boots — the mage had been close to her size, but still had a few inches on her in height — before nodding to Hadvar and Jonas. "Let's go."

Hadvar led the way deeper into the keep, Jonas close behind him and Alessia taking up the rear. They all ignored the torturer's last words behind them: "There's no way out that way, you know..."

"I figured this would be an easy assignment, you know, on the border with Skyrim, and I survived my first winter here," Jonas said as they passed through a corridor lined with locked prison cells. His voice was high with nerves. "Then we captured two Stormcloaks...the mage and that other guy...they told us where Ulfric was going to be, and I nearly got a promotion out of it, only Leftenant Granius took the credit for it...then those Stormcloaks burst in and nearly killed us...and now there's a _dragon_ attacking!"

Hadvar and Alessia exchanged a look, and he put a hand on the younger Imperial's shoulder. "Listen, soldier. We're going to be fine. General Tullius is out there leading the defense. There's no way that dragon will survive. All we have to do is find our way out of here. But we don't want to be too loud, eh? There may be more Stormcloaks down here. I know there's more than one hidden passage to the under-keep."

They went on, and on, and on. The keep seemed endless; Alessia found herself jumping at every shadow, every sound from the battle going on distantly above them, her heartbeat rapid. She was coming to the realization that somehow, this was actually real. There was a dragon pillaging Fort Helgen, and General Tullius and his soldiers were all acting like it was their first time seeing one of them. To be fair, it was the largest one she had ever seen, black as night with cunning eyes and a terrible arsenal of — well, whatever kind of magic dragons used.

They passed more cages recessed into the wall, some hanging empty, some holding little more than bones. Further and further down they crept, into the bowels of the keep. Hadvar certainly seemed to know his way around; he led them unerringly to a maze of broken-down passageways, covered over by slime and mushrooms, dimly lit by braziers that looked like they were about to flicker out. He hesitated and after a moment, Alessia heard it too: there were people ahead, Nords from the sound of it, though she couldn't make out the words they spoke. "Let's see where this goes. Be careful, both of you."

Alessia nodded grimly and adjusted her grip on the sword, using a bit of magicka to evaporate the sweat from her palms. Now wasn't the time to lose her weapon from sheer carelessness. Jonas swallowed audibly and pulled out his battleaxe, which he had put away as they went through empty room after empty room. In case the braziers went out, Alessia cast a magelight with her off-hand, a ball of light which would follow her around either until it ran out of magicka or she dismissed it. It lit up the area like sunlight.

Further on, they were able to hear the others better.

 _"Where in Oblivion are we supposed to go?"_

 _"Jarl Ulfric surely made it out. He has the Voice on his side."_

 _"I'm not worried about Jarl Ulfric right now, I'm worried about us!"_

 _"Give it a rest,_ skeever _-brain, there's nobody down here."_

It was, of course, on these words that Hadvar, Alessia, and Jonas appeared from the tunnel, their weapons held warily at the ready but not quite willing to attack. There were six Stormcloaks, most of them grouped together on one side of a rushing stream, while two archers had ranged ahead and now spun back, notching arrows to their bows.

"Peace, kinsmen," said Hadvar. "We only wish to escape the dragon. We do not have to fight."

"There's blood on your blade," said a tall woman who had shaved her head, her brow fierce and a battle-light in her eyes. "Stormcloak blood. _Death to the Imperials!_ "

"Well, you tried," Alessia told Hadvar, then released the firebolt in her off-hand. It hit the Stormcloak closest to them solidly, knocking him back screaming into his fellows and setting the oil on the ground alight. Unfortunately, the fire didn't spread to the rest of the Stormcloaks, whose armor must have been wet from the spray of the waterfall behind them. Jonas screamed a battle-cry and charged in, swinging his battleaxe wildly; Hadvar went in more cautiously, shield raised and sword waiting for an opening.

Alessia aimed another firebolt across the stream, where she could see another telltale gleam of oil on the ground near the archers. This one missed, however, and she fell back to avoid being pierced by an arrow. Her magelight winked out, blinding her with sudden darkness. _At the very least, they'll be blinded, too_. She concentrated for a moment and released a double-handed blast of lightning, knocking both archers over, though her attack didn't appear to have killed them. She launched several less powerful firebolts in their direction and turned just in time to block the powerful swing of the tall woman's sword.

"Skyrim belongs to the _Nords!"_ the woman snarled, bearing down on her, assuming that because of Alessia's use of magicka she wasn't as physically strong. She wasn't right, but it wasn't smart to leave their weapons locked together and struggle against a larger opponent. Alessia fell backwards, letting go of her sword; soldiers were trained to never let go of their weapons, but she was no soldier, and had magic besides. She rolled out of the way of the Stormcloak's over-eager downstroke and brought up magicka-charged Scorching Hands to blast her point-blank, killing her and sending her body tumbling back.

Aside from the flames crackling greedily on the Stormcloaks' bodies, there was very little sound. She stood carefully. The battle had been over quickly. Hadvar stood panting, the tip of his sword on the ground, his shield hanging from one strap. He had been injured, she saw, though a healing potion was already at work knitting the flesh back together. The young torturer's assistant, however, had not fared nearly as well. He lay sprawled half-under a dead Stormcloak, eyes wide and staring.

The worst part of it was the smell. Burning humans apparently smelled very much like roasting pork. Alessia picked up her sword and sheathed it calmly, and just as calmly went to the edge of the walkway and vomited into the stream.

She wiped her mouth. "I'm never going to eat pork again."

Hadvar didn't say anything, but she heard him sheath his own sword. She turned to see him kneel by Jonas' corpse and close the young Imperial's eyes, placing a copper harald on each eyelid. She was a bit surprised he carried any haralds—that currency had gone out of circulation for centuries, with the gold septim becoming the standard at the dawn of the Medic regency, after Martin Septim's selfless sacrifice—but then again, he was a Nord. He said something too quietly for her to hear, then stood and nodded gravely to her.

"Onward."

They crossed the bridge and waited for the flames to peter out on the oil-slicked floor before opening a bridge. Beyond lay an unlit tunnel going even further down. Alessia launched a magelight down the tunnel, willing it to stick to the first surface it came to. The tunnel kept going down, following the stream, and at the end of the light something moved with frightening speed. They drew their swords and advanced, cautious.

Just as they finished passing over the bridge, another rumble came from above, and part of the keep collapsed inward, weighing enough that it broke through the ground and crashed into the tunnel behind them.

"Damn it!" Hadvar looked like he wanted to say something worse but refrained. "No going back that way. I guess we're lucky that didn't come down on top of us. We better push on. I'm sure the others will find another way out."

Past where her magelight had stuck to the sloping ceiling, the tunnel evened out and opened into a cave full of spiders larger than wolves. _Frostbite spiders! Yeugh._ She had never been fond of harmless house spiders, let alone ones that could eat her in two bites. Luckily, she knew how to deal with them, and Hadvar had the sense to stay back and out of the way when she let loose with a stream of fire from both hands. Very quickly the four spiders were dead, though they had managed to get some of their venomous spit on Alessia's arms, which burned like she'd spent too long in the cold.

"You know any way to treat this?"

"There's a potion for that, but we don't have any," said Hadvar, shaking his head. "Give it time. Maybe some Restoration magic will help, I don't know. Healing potions won't, though, something about the venom."

"Yeah," she sighed, "I was afraid of that."

They continued onwards, Alessia casting another hovering magelight to keep them from stumbling around blindly. The cave narrowed to a tunnel right on top of the stream, so they sloshed through with grim determination. Eventually, it opened up into a much larger cave, with the stream rushing out over a drop and a tunnel leading upwards out the other end.

"Hold up," the Nord whispered. "There's a bear just ahead. See her? I'd rather not tangle with her right now. We might be able to sneak by. Just take it nice and slow, and watch where you step. Go ahead. I'll follow your lead and watch your back."

Alessia frowned, but nodded. They were exhausted, and down to their last couple of potions. A cave bear was more foe than she was willing to take on without some serious magic, and her magicka was regenerating more slowly again. "Got it. I'll try to keep my steps quiet, but I'm no sneak."

They stole around the edge of the cavern, avoiding the slumbering bear with more ease than she'd thought they would. Past it, they broke and ran for the exit, stumbling out into sudden, bright sunshine.

"I was starting to wonder if we'd ever make it," she marveled.

"Wait!" Hadvar cried, dragging her back with him into the shadow of the cave's mouth. With an echoing roar the black dragon swooped by overhead, close enough that she didn't dare to breath. It glided for a moment before flying up and away with powerful beats of its wings, soaring towards a Nordic ruin on the side of a mountain in the distance.

They waited a minute, breathless with fear. If he came back, they were done for. Eventually, they relaxed.

"Looks like he's gone for good this time. But I don't think we should stick around to see if he comes back." Hadvar surveyed the sky and the empty road. There was no wildlife stirring; everything was quiet in the wake of the dragon. "Closest town from here is Riverwood. My uncle's the blacksmith there. I'm sure he could help you out. It's probably best if we split up. Good luck. I wouldn't have made it without your help today. Listen, you should go to Solitude and join up with the Imperial Legion. We could really use someone like you. And if the rebels have themselves a dragon, General Tullius is the only one who can stop them."

"No, I think it's better to stick together. Who knows, there may be more Stormcloaks down the road!" They started down the road. "Besides, you've got the bread and cheese. It's past lunchtime, you know."

He laughed. "You'll get more than bread and cheese tonight, my friend. Come on. I'll feel better once we're under cover in Riverwood."

They made light conversation as they walked. Hadvar still didn't remember her — which wasn't all that strange, compared to a dragon and the revelation that Ulfric Stormcloak was still alive. Eventually, the topic turned to the war.

"You really think I should join the Imperial Legion?" Alessia had a hard time believing it. Only a few hours before, he had been complacent enough sending her to an undeserved execution, simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"Of course! I know, today wasn't the best introduction to the Legion, but I hope you'll give us another chance. The Legion could really use someone like you, especially now." He scowled. "And if the rebels have themselves a dragon, General Tullius is the only one who can stop them."

"General Tullius ordered my execution. Why would I want to help him?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I don't blame you for being angry about it. I would be, too, in your shoes. But it was all a mistake. You weren't supposed to be on that cart with those Stormcloak traitors. And the Imperial Legion needs your help, especially now, with that dragon out there somewhere, and Ulfric back on the loose."

"And that's another matter. Ulfric Stormcloak. What exactly happened with him?"

"A masterstroke by General Tullius! He's only been in charge here for a few months, but he's turned things around for the Empire. We've been trying to catch Ulfric since th war started, but he always seemed to slip through our fingers...like he knew we were coming. This time, the General turned the tables on him. Ulfirc rode right into our ambush with only a few bodyguards. He surrendered pretty meekly, too. So much for his death-or-glory reputation." Hadvar laughed. "I thought we were taking Ulfric back to Cyrodiil, but I guess the General changed his mind. You know the rest."

 _That didn't really answer my question_. Something strange was going on, beyond Stormcloaks and dragons. She would spend the night in Riverwood and then head to the College up in Winterhold. The College had a massive library, as well as at least a hundred mages in attendance. Surely out of all the scholars there, somebody would know something.

"You make a good case. Maybe I will join up."

"I hope so. The Legion is skyrim's only hope right now. Come on, we'd better get moving. Riverwood's just over the next ridge."


End file.
